For my first blog post, I decided to look at the concept of Up through a discipline in which I am quite familiar, film. I choose a specific film that not only deals with the literal interpretation of up but also the idea of upward mobility and the complicated nature of it. Said film is the science fiction gem Gattaca (1997). A somewhat brief synopsis:
In a world of genetic purity, where science can create the perfect human, Vincent is one of the natural borns, the Invalids, a new repressed minority living in the shadow of the genetically pure. Vincent clings to a dream, to travel beyond our planet on a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan, to escape his mediocre life, to escape his “perfect” brother, to escape the planet that has done nothing but hold him down, but as an Invalid, he would never be allowed to go. So he borrows the identity of another, one with perfect genes. Just when things start to go his way, there’s a murder at the company where Vincent works, and all signs point to an Invalid, all signs point to him. And the world presses down on him once more, threatening to crush him and his dream completely…yet he fights with everything he has to go up.
There are a million reasons why I love this movie, but perhaps the biggest reason is how, despite his "perfect" brother, despite his messed up genes, despite everything, Vincent looks up. He looks at the stars, and he fights to join them. He constantly watches the rockets climb across the sky, so far above him, so far above everything that he has ever hated, far above all that has hated him. And that’s where he wants to be. And part of it is the vastness of space, the limitless potential, the beauty of Titan and its mystery, but part of it is rising above a society that has deemed him unworthy of prestige, success, love.
Something I think all of us want to do is rise above. And whether or not that is even possible, I can’t say. But I think that our desire to do better, to rise above our place in life is the best and worst thing we do. It’s why we accomplish great things and its why we lose so much, a theme that Gattaca explores wonderfully as we see Vincent and his struggle against the world, as we see him look up to the stars and try to join them, as we see the things that pull him down, that threaten to trap him forever, and how much pain it causes him.
In class we talked, although only briefly, about upward mobility and the idea that it was per chance an illusion. Gattaca presents a world in which upward mobility is virtually impossible for those who weren’t already born perfect (whether through unlikely accident or the futuristic norm of genetic enhancement). If you are born imperfect you’re life will always remain that way. Your disabilities and disorders will define you for the rest of your life, however small, however seemingly insignificant. It will brand you.
Let us compare it with the world today. Although we are not yet playing the Genetic Enchantment Game yet, we do live in a world in which upward mobility is not something available to everyone. Even in the United States, a first world country, upward mobility is not available to everyone. Consider the grand old American Dream. The American Dream has always been about rising above, about having the same chance as everybody else to be on top, to succeed. And in varying degrees, it has been true but never completely. Founders, Corporations, Militaries, Interest Groups, Political Parties, and others have a say as to who rises and who does not.
In fact, in the United States we have a term for the force pushing people down. The Glass Ceiling has become a common term used to describe an invisible barrier pushing down women, minorities, and any group that falls outside the socio-economic norm of rich white men. Maybe it’s called a glass ceiling because of all the blood that is spilled breaking through it. All the sacrifice and strength it takes to go up in a system that does not want you to, a system that wants you to fall. But despite all that the future genetic society threw at Vincent he fought back, and despite all that our system may throw at us, we can fight back to. It may be an uphill battle, but it’s by no means a hopeless one. Because they can’t hold everyone down. Gravity is the only thing strong enough to suppress everyone at once and we escaped that years ago, and if we can escape that, we can escape damn near anything.
But, if I may take just a few more moments of your time, I want to talk about another aspect of Gattaca and our recent discussions. It may have been a film about a futuristic oppressive society where upward mobility was fully controlled in a manner uncomfortably familiar (bit of a bummer I know), but it was also about how one man’s dream of going up, going beyond the Earth, compelled him and pushed him to succeed. In class we talked about our space program NASA and its old logo, and how much power it had, and how much power it still does have. About how much we pride there is, not just for the United States but for humanity, to be a part of the species who crawled out of the ocean, stepped foot out of the cave, and then went all the way up to the damn moon. And when we did that, the door was opened, the door to everything else.
Venus
Titan
Europa
Jupiter
And the door still is open and we stand in the doorway, watching the vastness, watching the stars above us, terrified to leave home because it’s all we know, but wanting so badly to seek that great perhaps. To go up, to rise and eclipse everything we’ve ever done, every fear we’ve ever had, every doubt we’ve ever felt. I hope we can be brave enough to.
Gattaca. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Ethan Hawke and Jude Law. Sony, 1997. DVD.
"Space Tourism Posters." NASA/JPL. NASA, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Vintage NASA posters can be found at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the-future/
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